Vultures join the German police force

German police will use vultures to determine the location of corpses in places where dogs cannot come.

Vultures have the ability to detect the smell of rotten meat from a height of up to 1,000 m.Photo: theragens.com .

With super sensitive sense of smell, vultures can detect the smell of rotting meat as they fly at an altitude of nearly 1,000 m. They can also detect corpses buried deep in forests or swamps.

Telegraph said the German police force will train vultures to search for scavengers. Before letting the birds search for the corpse they will attach global positioning devices to their bodies to monitor. Currently the police are training Sherlock, the name of the first vulture.

Rainer Herrmann, a police officer, said: "A colleague of mine came up with the idea of ​​using vultures to look for dead people after watching a show about nature."

Herrman asserts that if vultures serve the police, the search for a corpse will become faster because vultures can detect rotting flesh on a much larger area than dogs. In addition, they can fly to very remote places where the dogs cannot come.